


Rust

by wavewright62



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen, Memories, The Old Ways are the New Ways, Year 0 (Stand Still Stay Silent)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 07:13:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12625878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavewright62/pseuds/wavewright62
Summary: It's good to get the rust out, get the old things working again.





	Rust

**Author's Note:**

> This serves as my contribution for the letter R in the SSSS Alphabet Challenge.

Ulrika scrubbed. Ironic. Iconic. Rural Character. Ironic. Iconic. Rural Character. The refrain kept going through her head.

Ironic. Iconic. Rural Character.

She had been coming with Stig to the family cabin for how many years now? Every year, she would look at that washtub and wringer tucked away in the shed behind the cabin, a relic of more rustic times. The cabin had been wired with electricity long before, and a washer and dryer had been installed. She would complain that they should just haul those old things to the dump. Stig would shrug his shoulders and agree, but nothing ever happened, and the wringer rusted away back there, hosting generations of spiders.

Ironic. Iconic. Rural Character.

A few years ago, in an unusual fit of energy, Ulf and Stig had scrubbed enough rust off the hand-operated water pump behind the cabin to get it going again. Mia had been a toddler then, and squealed with delight as she tried to ‘help’ Ulf pump some cold water. The water was too rusty to use of course, and Ulrika scolded all three of them when Mia got soaked. “It’s good to get the rust out sometimes,” Ulf had laughed, “keep the old things working, eh?” Stig had joined him in his self-deprecating chuckle.

Ironic. Iconic. Rural Character. Her hands were raw, even through the stiff leather gloves.

Then the day came when Ulrika was leafing through a design magazine while waiting for yet another plane to Frankfurt. There was a spread about some designer who had decorated his sleek Stockholm apartment with the usual assortment of glass tables and discreet wall sconces, but also an old hand-operated laundry wringer, _just like the one behind the family cabin._ It had had _just enough_ of the rust and corrosion cleaned off it and was painted with cute rosemaling motifs.

The photo was entitled “Ironic. Iconic. Rural Character.”

The next time they went up to the cabin, Ulrika ran her eye appraisingly over the wringer and pictured it in their own house. She too, could have Ironic, Iconic, Rural Character. She and Stig drove to the nearest town and bought a generous supply of steel wool, sandpaper, enamel paints, machine oil – everything they would need to get that old wringer up to date with Ironic, Iconic, Rural Character.

Ulrike had gritted her teeth and evicted all the spiders, then spent an entire afternoon scrubbing that thing with a wire brush. She was exhausted and sore, and the wringer didn’t look much different. Stig made a desultory effort on it the next day to keep peace with Ulrika, but he packed it in a little too readily in favour of going mushroom-hunting with Elvira. She decided it wasn’t really worth having the Ironic, Iconic, Rural Character after all, unless she could find it already restored in an antique shop or something.

Ironic. Iconic. Rural Character.

Ulrika interrupted her reverie to stretch. Now, they were all living at the cabin full-time since fleeing the Rash illness all those months ago. The electricity had given out for good a few weeks ago, and suddenly the need to restore the hand-operated machinery became an imperative again. They had been taking turns scrubbing the old wringer, and had been making headway on it.

Stig was attempting to clean out the bearings on the wringer’s crank handle. Elvira was doing some laundry in the washtub. Ulf was doing his level best to wring out the wet clothing by twisting it in his hands before pegging it up on the clothesline. Elvira was telling Mia how they had _always_ done their laundry like that ‘in the old days.’ Ulrika almost admonished Elvira to point out that they certainly had washing machines when Elvira was young, but stopped when she saw Mia’s rapt expression. Ulf’s words came back to her, interweaving with the phrase she’d had running through her head all day. _It’s good to get the rust out sometimes, keep the old things working. Ironic. Iconic. Rural Character._

Ulrika had wondered whether she would ever be going back home, she and Stig going back to their jobs, sending Mia back to her school with her tablet computer, jetting off to the head office in Frankfurt or to some island in Greece, seeing Ulf and Elvira only occasionally on the weekends. Seeing her own family again, after finding out that some of them were safe before the cell networks went down. She hadn’t fully appreciated until this moment that all of that was probably lost to her now. She stripped off her leather gloves. A blister had grown and popped on the heel of her thumb while she was scrubbing. The salt water that fell on it stung mightily.

Ironic. Iconic. Rural Character.


End file.
